Sell silver by post, once you know which of it is silver

Photograph the marks before you pack anything

A canteen of cutlery in its case, a tray gone grey at the edges, a pair of candlesticks: all the same dull colour. Some of it will be sterling and some will be electroplate, which is worth nothing as metal. Nobody can tell which from across a room, and you should not have to. Photograph the marks and we will sort that out before anything goes in a box.

Silver hides its answer in about four square millimetres, usually in the least convenient place on the object. Turn a fork over and look along the back of the handle; turn a tray over and look near a foot. A teapot carries its marks on the base, sometimes under the handle, occasionally inside the lid. Photograph what you find, close and in focus, and send it on WhatsApp.

That one picture settles most of it: a lion walking to the left, or the number 925, means sterling. EPNS, EP, A1 or the words “silver plate” mean a base metal with a skin of silver, which is not worth posting. What EPNS, A1 and Sheffield plate mean takes the letters one at a time. We tell you which you have in writing, with nothing to pay and nothing to agree to.

• The back of one fork, one spoon and one knife handle, close enough to read the marks.
• The underside of anything hollow: teapot, jug, tray, bowl, candlestick.
• Any piece stamped weighted, loaded or filled, because that word tells you something else is inside.
• The case or canteen itself if the set came in one, and the empty slots if any are missing.
• A wide shot of everything laid out, so we can see the size of the job.

If you would rather talk it through, the telephone reaches the same person, and the photo guide shows what to photograph. Marks worn beyond reading are not a problem either; they mean the answer waits for a test rather than a photograph.

Sterling, Britannia, continental and the marks that separate them

Four standards of silver are approved in the UK: 800, 925, 958 and 999. Sterling is 925 parts per thousand and it is what nearly all British cutlery, hollowware and jewellery is made of. Britannia is 958 and softer, and is rare in cutlery. Continental pieces run 800, 830, 835 or 900 and carry their own national marks, and a foreign piece hallmarked here after import carries an import mark beside its fineness.

Silver standards, and the marks you are most likely to meet

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Anything of 7.78 g or more sold as silver in this country should carry a hallmark, and a great deal of older, foreign and very light silver never did. On a modern British piece the lion is optional, so 925 in its oval can stand on its own. We read the marks first and confirm them by testing, which is described on the testing and XRF page; the guide to UK hallmarks shows each mark enlarged.

How electroplate gives itself away

EPNS, electroplated nickel silver, is an alloy of copper, nickel and zinc under a coat of silver a few microns thick. A1 is a maker's grade for that coat, not a fineness. Sheffield plate is a sheet of silver fused onto copper and rolled out with it. In all three the silver is a thin skin that costs more to recover than it is worth, so these pieces are identified and posted back to you rather than bought (clause 11.1).

• The marks do most of the work. EPNS, EP, EPBM, A1, silver plate, plated, BP, or a maker's name with a plating grade after it, all mean plate.
• Plate reads as silver on an untouched surface, so a second reading is taken at a worn edge, a foot or a handle where the base metal has come through.
• A plated fork has the density of brass rather than of sterling, and a weighing in water settles an unclear mark.
• Pink or yellow patches on the high points are the copper or the brass showing through where the skin has worn away.
• A magnet picks out cheap plate on a steel base at once; sterling and nickel silver do not respond to it.

None of this is a judgement on the objects. A canteen of electroplate can be perfectly good cutlery, worth keeping, passing on or selling at a local saleroom for what it is. It is simply not silver, and a token offer for a heavy box of it would only encourage people to post more.

Candlesticks, knife handles and the pitch inside them

A great many sterling candlesticks, trophy bases, dressing-table sets and knife handles are a thin silver shell packed with pitch, plaster or resin, often around an iron rod that stops the thing bending. What the object weighs and what silver is in it are two very different figures. Some are stamped weighted, loaded or filled; plenty are not, and a candlestick that feels reassuringly solid in the hand is usually the most heavily loaded one on the shelf.

So a filled piece is bought as the silver shell we can establish, never as the thing on the scales. Nothing is opened before you have accepted an offer, so the silver is estimated from the construction of that pattern, its dimensions and the thickness of the metal where an edge can be measured. The method is written down and sent to you with everything else, and if you disagree with it you keep the piece. The guide to weighted and loaded silver shows a candlestick in section.

Pieces that are usually filled, and what is actually silver in them

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What decides what silver is worth

This is the question everybody arrives with, and it has an honest answer that is not a number. Three things decide it, and only one of them is about the market.

• How much of it is silver at all. A canteen that turns out to be electroplate is worth nothing as metal, however much it weighs. This is why the marks come first.
• What the silver weighs on its own. A candlestick is a thin silver shell around pitch and an iron rod; a knife is a silver handle on a steel blade. Those fillings are weighed and left out, and what remains is usually a fraction of what the scales said at the start.
• The silver price on the day it is weighed. It moves every working day, so a figure quoted last week is a figure about last week.

That is why this site quotes no rate and works out no figure for you. A number produced before anyone has seen your marks, separated your plate from your sterling or found the pitch inside a base is a guess wearing a decimal point, and the one thing it reliably does is set an expectation somebody has to take back later.

What you get instead: photograph the marks and you are told, free and in writing, what looks like silver and what does not, so you know before you post whether there is anything here worth posting. Send it and every piece is weighed alone and tested, the non-silver parts are named and deducted, and the offer shows the working line by line. How an offer is put together sets out what appears on it.

Every piece on a list, before anything is decided

A canteen arrives as one object and is dealt with as forty. Every fork, spoon, knife and server is separated out, counted, photographed and weighed, and its marks read under magnification. Hollowware has its wooden handles, bone insulators, glass liners and hinge pins taken into account rather than quietly weighed as though they were silver.

What comes back to you first is that list, in plain words: twelve table forks, sterling, Sheffield 1934; six dessert spoons, electroplate, returning to you; one pair of candlesticks, sterling, filled. You can hold it against your own memory of what went in the box before anyone asks you to decide anything. If a count does not match, we stop and raise it before any offer is written.

• Each piece or matched run of pieces numbered, photographed and weighed.
• The marks found, and the town and date letter where they can be read.
• Plate identified as plate, named as such, and set aside for return.
• Filled and weighted pieces marked as filled, with the method used to establish the silver in them.
• Anything held back for a closer look, and the reason it was held back.

One written offer, and then it is your call

We price the lot, not the gram. One figure comes back for everything we are buying, in writing, next to the list of what is included and the list of what is going home again. Silver comes in bulk and in mixed condition, and a canteen is one thing to decide about rather than forty, so it is offered for as one.

Nothing is melted, sold on or altered while you think about it. Say yes and you are paid by bank transfer to an account in your own name (clause 7.1). Say no and the lot comes home by tracked post at our cost, plate included, with any glass liners and loose parts wrapped separately. Say nothing and nothing is sold; if the offer lapses, the lot stays here untouched until you ask for a fresh offer or for it back.

You can also keep part of it. Say which pieces you want back, the tea service for instance, and a fresh written offer comes for the rest while the first stays open (clause 6.3). You will not be telephoned or pressed either way. Nobody has set a period for how long an offer stands, so none is quoted here or on the offers, returns and payment page, and you will not be hurried.

When a set is worth more than the silver in it

Silver is where this matters most. A full canteen by a known maker, a matched tea service or a Georgian coffee pot can be worth far more intact than as metal, and breaking one up cannot be undone. So anything that seems to belong in that group is stopped short of the scrap route, and you are told before anything is priced if a specialist or an auction may do better.

• Complete canteens and matched services, especially with their original case and a maker's name.
• Georgian, early Victorian and provincially assayed pieces, which go in front of someone who reads date letters for a living.
• Arts and Crafts, Art Deco and named designer silver, where the design carries the value rather than the weight.
• Coins with a scarce date or in fine condition, proofs, and bullion still in its original packaging.
• Crests, presentation inscriptions and regimental associations, which sometimes place a piece with a collector.
• Caddy spoons, vinaigrettes, wine labels and other small specialist forms that are easy to miss in a bulk lot.

Who handles it, and where to start

The same person opens your parcel, counts it, tests it, writes the offer and replies when you ask why the tray is not sterling after all. Silver lots are heavy and slow to work through, and they are not passed around.

Start by sending pictures of the marks. If you already know the canteen is sterling and simply want it gone, request a prepaid label and skip ahead. A heavy collection may need two parcels, and each is a lot of its own unless you ask us in writing to hold the first until the second arrives (clause 3.3). Ask a question and the split is arranged before anything moves.

Silver cutlery and canteens, tea sets and trays and silver coins and bars each have a page of their own. If the silver came out of a house you are clearing, house clearance gold and silver covers a whole-house lot, and how it works runs through every stage.

What we buy, and what we leave out

Stopped before anything is treated as scrap

• Complete canteens and matched services by a known maker are considered as sets before anything else
• Georgian, early Victorian and provincially hallmarked pieces go to someone who reads date letters
• Arts and Crafts, Art Deco and named designer silver is assessed for collector demand
• Coins with numismatic interest, proofs and originally packaged bullion are looked at as coins
• Engraved crests, presentation inscriptions and regimental pieces are checked for provenance
• Caddy spoons, vinaigrettes, wine labels and other specialist forms are pulled out of bulk lots